Chuck Todd’s impeachment tirade

Chuck Todd on Wednesday railed against both the White House and congressional Republicans for engaging in “disgusting” and “embarrassing” rhetoric on impeachment and suing the president.

“This is sort of an embarrassing moment for Washington,” the NBC News chief White House correspondent said. “The leaders for both parties here — they’re driving away people from the polls, they’re driving people away from politics. This is cynical, it’s ugly, it’s disgusting.”

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The “Morning Joe” panel was discussing reports that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has raised $2.1 million on fundraising largely related to its campaign materials that Republicans are trying to impeach Obama. At a White House press briefing on Tuesday, press secretary Josh Earnest read a list of GOP lawmakers that have suggested impeaching the president and said he wouldn’t call on Democrats to stop fundraising on the issue.

House Speaker John Boehner — who is pursuing a lawsuit against the president for executive overreach related to his decision to delay the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate — has called the impeachment talk a “scam” and said Democrats were using the issue just to anger the liberal base.

Todd declared a plague on both their houses, criticizing both Boehner and the White House for “embarrassing” tactics.

“This is the most cynical — Boehner’s up there with this ridiculous lawsuit, Josh Earnest sitting at the podium trying to tick off names of, ‘Look at Republicans who want impeachment’ — it’s not serious,” Todd said. “The lawsuit’s not serious. The impeachment talk’s not serious. This is playground stuff. This is embarrassing.”

The political analyst went on to say that Boehner’s lawsuit against the president is disingenuous because it’s “about placating the impeachment caucus in his own party” and said that the upcoming November elections are shaping up to be a low turnout, “awful base election” because the U.S. public is disenchanted with both parties.